tree 70c93baa9df755952c065c334df0bd86e7024889
parent 325c4ef5c4b17372c3222d896040d7848e67fbdb
author Junxiao Bi <junxiao.bi@oracle.com> 1378934584 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1378940293 -0700

writeback: fix race that cause writeback hung

There is a race between mark inode dirty and writeback thread, see the
following scenario.  In this case, writeback thread will not run though
there is dirty_io.

__mark_inode_dirty()                                          bdi_writeback_workfn()
	...                                                       	...
	spin_lock(&inode->i_lock);
	...
	if (bdi_cap_writeback_dirty(bdi)) {
	    <<< assume wb has dirty_io, so wakeup_bdi is false.
	    <<< the following inode_dirty also have wakeup_bdi false.
	    if (!wb_has_dirty_io(&bdi->wb))
		    wakeup_bdi = true;
	}
	spin_unlock(&inode->i_lock);
	                                                            <<< assume last dirty_io is removed here.
	                                                            pages_written = wb_do_writeback(wb);
	                                                            ...
	                                                            <<< work_list empty and wb has no dirty_io,
	                                                            <<< delayed_work will not be queued.
	                                                            if (!list_empty(&bdi->work_list) ||
	                                                                (wb_has_dirty_io(wb) && dirty_writeback_interval))
	                                                                queue_delayed_work(bdi_wq, &wb->dwork,
	                                                                    msecs_to_jiffies(dirty_writeback_interval * 10));
	spin_lock(&bdi->wb.list_lock);
	inode->dirtied_when = jiffies;
	<<< new dirty_io is added.
	list_move(&inode->i_wb_list, &bdi->wb.b_dirty);
	spin_unlock(&bdi->wb.list_lock);

	<<< though there is dirty_io, but wakeup_bdi is false,
	<<< so writeback thread will not be waked up and
	<<< the new dirty_io will not be flushed.
	if (wakeup_bdi)
	    bdi_wakeup_thread_delayed(bdi);

Writeback will run until there is a new flush work queued.  This may cause
a lot of dirty pages stay in memory for a long time.

Signed-off-by: Junxiao Bi <junxiao.bi@oracle.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Fengguang Wu <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>